Tess of the D’Urbervilles opens Goodreads in a new tab

Poverty drives Tess Durbeyfield to claim kinship with the wealthy d'Urbervilles, setting off a chain of events that brings her into contact with two very different men: the exploitative Alec and the idealistic Angel Clare. Hardy's tragic novel follows a young woman crushed by Victorian morality and cruel fate, with landscape and nature as powerful as its characters.